


Revisons

by ladygray99



Series: Rescue Me [3]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Community: numb3rs100, Drabble Sequence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/pseuds/ladygray99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Don's old life comes back to haunt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who He Was (#458 Rumor)

Don didn't spend time with the other TAs. Not because they were bad kids, but because they were kids.

Don had nightmares they would never understand, a cane to hold his steps steady, and hair that was becoming properly gray.

He knew there was talk, rumors about who he was, who he had been, what he had done. Larry passed on the funnier ones. Don's favorite involved the mob and half the plot of Die Hard.

He didn't mind, especially when the rumors filtered down to the undergrads. No one ever dreamed of trying to argue their grades with him.


	2. Like a Bad Penny (#403 Back)

Sometimes Don's old life managed to drag him back. Someone Don arrested had been granted a retrial.

The case files got delivered to the shoebox of an office he shared with three other TAs.

He knew he should take them home and look at them there, but the home he'd built with Larry was a sanctuary devoid of who he used to be.

His knee began to ache and there was an itch on his hand where he'd last washed off gunshot residue. It was all psychosomatic. And if he remembered the case correctly it would get worse before better.


	3. A Suit of Thorns (#404 Top)

The top file was the report from the responding officer at the first scene. It was typed but the hand that signed it had been shaking.

Report of a weird smell by neighbors.

Back door open.

Dogs chewing on what was left.

Don reached deep into himself to find that last cold sliver of detachment he once wrap around himself every day. It was once comfortable or at least familiar. Now it felt like a suit of thorns locking into place.

Don took a deep breath, steadied himself, and started to go through the old files bit by gruesome bit.


	4. Office Hours (#428 Hidden)

There was a knock on the door.

"Office hours are posted," Don called out. One student had already left puking, Don's star charts replaced with gory photos and bits of string.

"Never thought I'd hear you say those words," Charlie said from behind him.

Don didn't turn around but he wasn't surprised. The case was one of the last they had worked together before Don was shot and things were said that could never be unsaid. Despite working in the same building Don saw his niece and nephew more often than his brother. "I'm guessing you got a box as well."

"And I'll probably have the nightmares to go with it, again." Don just nodded. "I'm going to redo the math, take a neutral look, but really it was the trace and fiber evidence that nailed him to begin with."

"I always thought we were missing something, some important bit of evidence. Something hidden in plain sight."

"Do you think you'll find it this time?"

"My whole thesis involves finding traces of stars shifting before Earth was even created. I think I'll be able to see things a little differently this time. Maybe find the shapes of things not there."


	5. Sit Down, Shut Up (#443 Contemplate)

There were papers to grade. Charlie had always tossed them to his grad students when a case was on. Now Don was a grad student.

Doctor Fenway, who knew a bit of Don's previous life, also left the office looking sick but still left a pile of student papers on Don's desk. Don was not kind. His students whined.

Don lifted his shirt. "See this? Croatian war criminal with a big knife." Don scattered case photos across the table. "And these people would love nothing more than to trade places with you lot. Now sit down, shut up, and learn."


	6. Blood, Stars, and Stones (#461 Follow)

GJ 3022 Spectral type G6 V (ringed).

That was where Don's mind should have been, 65 light years away on a sun type star with rings instead of planets, and a single gas giant.

Don ran his thesis adviser, Doctor Katner, over the newest data he'd gotten from the gravitational simulator. She'd never been fully behind his theory of solar orbital resonances but she'd been willing to let him run with it, and she was starting to come around.

Don's hand itched. His knee ached. There was an itch in the back of his head, the same one as last time. How and why were the victims selected? That they could never work out. Even Charlie's best math hadn't cracked the question.

"Don?"

"What?"

"Your mind is someplace else."

"Sorry."

"Someplace gruesome according to rumors."

Don put his face in his hands. For the first time in years he wanted a beer.

"We never- I never could work out how he picked his victims. He'd follow them, pull them apart-" Don shook his head trying to replace blood with stars and stones. Stones once planets, pulled apart. And Don saw layered together, shreds of ideas. "Sorry, I've got to go."


	7. Easy Ideas (#300 Orbit)

Don dropped his thesis research onto Charlie's desk.

"GJ 3022 has rings instead of planets, why? Easy idea, the partials just never clumped into planets. My idea, there were planets, that 3022 got just close enough to the local neutron star to create an orbital resonance on a solar scale that ripped the planets apart."

Charlie blinked at him. "Okay."

"We never could find the victims in his orbit. What if they were in someone else's? Who would he hurt by killing the people around them?"

Charlie blinked again. "I don't know, but I bet I can work it out."


	8. Soup (#445 Dawn)

Larry was cooking. Don wasn't sure what it was but it smelled nice. Not that he had much appetite.

He sat heavy on the couch dropping his cane to the floor.

Larry put a bowl of soup in his hands that was a lovely light orange. "It's sunrise soup."

Don took a sip and couldn't place the flavor, but it was thick and warm. Larry sat beside him, solid, warm, peaceful, and so desperately needed. He finished the soup and leaned on Larry's shoulder.

He knew he wouldn't sleep his mind too full of the case and still unanswered questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sunrise soup is a roasted pumpkin soup made with chicken broth.


	9. Only One Thing To Say (#398 Curse)

Nikki gave him a hug first. She'd been the last of the team he'd managed to drive away. Liz and Colby followed.

"You look good, boss," recently elected City Council Woman Betancourt told him.

Don smiled. "I look old."

"You look sober," Nikki told him later.

"Does anyone know how this sick fuck got a retrial?" Colby asked. He'd been running LA counterterrorism and was out of the loop.

"Some cop who responded to one scene told someone something about accidentally messing with some evidence." Liz said. She was still running violent crimes.

"Jesus fucking hell," was Don's only response.


	10. Don Eppes, Teaching Assistant (#312 Badge)

It felt strange to sit in the witness box without a badge displayed on his hip or tucked into his pocket. He felt naked. "Please state your name and position for the court."

"Don Eppes… Teaching Assistant."

"And your former title," the prosecutor prompted.

"Agent Don Eppes, FBI, head of Los Angeles Violent Crimes unit." Don never thought he'd say those words again. They turned in his stomach.

"Before we begin would you briefly explain to the jury your reason for leaving the FBI."

"Had my knee blown to bits in a shootout, decided it was time for a change.


	11. Under the Couch (#429 Lost)

Gonzales' hadn't changed. Liz gestured for four beers. Don shook his head and ordered water. He wanted a beer too much. "Can't stay too late. Papers to grade."

"And cross-examination tomorrow." Liz grumbled as they all grabbed a booth.

For a long time Don hadn't cared what anyone at the FBI thought of him or what happened after the shooting. Now he was glad there was nothing about his breakdown in his record. He couldn't risk his credibility being called into question.

"So when do you become the next Doctor Eppes?" Nikki asked as their beers arrived.

"Not for a while yet. I need to find something first."

"What are you looking for?"

"A star with enough gravity that it pulled apart an entire solar system a few billion years before Earth was even formed."

"Have you checked behind the couch?" Colby asked. "I'm always losing stuff there."

Don smiled. He'd heard it before but there was something nice about it coming from Colby.

"I'm always losing stuff in my car. Goes rolling under a seat and I never see it again." Nikki nodded in agreement with Liz.

"I'll be sure to check. Might find a black hole as well."


	12. Oral Defense (#166 Defense)

Don tried to treat his cross-examination like practice for his eventual oral defense; cool, logical, easily side stepping obviously bated questions.

He was sure it used to be easier. His shell of detachment was thicker.

He survived the questioning. He went home and tried not to scream. He felt the cracks in his old rusted armor open, the sharp edges cutting deep, letting the horror back in.

Larry held him close and read Feynman's Lectures on Physics just as he had, right at the beginning, out in the desert, when he was piecing Don back together, bit by shattered bit.


	13. Within Minutes (#135 Guilty)

It was the now in question forensics that won the first case. It was Charlie's math that won the second.

There was a woman from their killer's past with the victims in her orbit. The math found her at a point where sets overlapped sets.

At the mention of her name the defendant jumped to his feet snarling obscenities. It did not impress the jury.

The defense tried to poke holes in evidence and find flaws in memories more than a decade old, but the jury came back within minutes instead of days. Guilty on all charges. Guilty once again.


	14. Find It (#297 Star)

"It was really Don's brainwave," Charlie said during the celebrations. "He shoved his astronomy thesis in my face and told me to find a star."

"Now you know how the rest of us feel," Don replied with a smile. It was easy to smile, easy to laugh. It felt like it could have been a decade earlier, everyone in the house with stake on the grill, taking a breath before the next case.

But it wasn't a decade ago and Don knew that even then once they all parted company his brain would become a bad neighborhood to be in.


	15. Too Easy to Fall (#439 Relapse)

The beer was cheap and certainly warm. Don had taken it off a freshman sighting both his age and the campus alcohol policy. It sat on the coffee table.

Even after years of total sobriety Don was sure it would only give him a light buzz. A high alcohol tolerance was an Eppes trait. He didn't want a buzz, he wanted oblivion.

His knee ached and his mind was full of blood instead of starlight. Larry sat beside him.

"I know I should be working on my thesis but I think I need a trip to the desert. Preferably tonight."


	16. Recursion (#455 Cold)

There was high cloud when they reached the cabin blocking out the stars. Empty for months the rooms were cold. Don didn't care about the cold, the cold was clean. Don needed to feel clean.

They curled into sleeping bags together for a few hours rest. When the sun rose Don swept. Then they climb the hill and drew water from the well.

The water was cold. Larry used it to make mint tea.

That night the stars came out, a hundred billion of them, filling the sky from one dark horizon to the other. Once again Don knew peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is the ultimate rare pairing but feedback would be greatly appreciated. O.O


End file.
